President Barack Obama will set high expectations for America's schoolchildren in a back-to-school speech this morning, urging them to work hard, set goals and stay in school. "If you quit school, you're not just quitting on yourself, you're quitting on your country," he is expected to say, according to prepared remarks released Monday. "Every single one of you has something you...

Your quitting on your Country, look out here Friend your talking War issues here, who done much of your heavy work for you, speak up Barack, because well I believe i quit your school bolonga, and who saves your tush, ready and aim gentlemen, want to re-state yourself Presidente.Government free ride into your privicies. B. Obama can your children sing, dance , mow the grass or shovel the snow, well get out of my business. i learned to do all these things at the age of 9 years and started working why because it was fun, you have no idea how the lack of natural talent is ruined by poor opinionated so called educators. I love education and intelligence, however 80 per cent of the things i learned to maintain my living out of major debt I learned at home. i think i loved the brief years of meeting people and practicing a repeat of last year education for the first 6 months, a refresher system then to be taught 6 months of a new system and several breaks between quite elementary foolishness. You have children today sent off to school prior to the age of 5 years, in the new both parents work plan, some start school soon after being born at day care centers. this is not the answer how do I know. All these children whom in the first few years of school get taught they have hypertensive disorders, because no one has the patience your mother has. They grow up in clicks of status where they believe a large part of the population never knew of a Mother to whom stayed home to raise they~re young and we all have problems, some are drugs some are drinking others are just a mental mess. Come up with higher wages so our men can work 8 hrs come home and the Mother can raise her own young. my children learned to read, write and do math before they went to elementary school. the teacher said, they are not allowed to write in except in print, my daughter scripture stopped. Why because they did not do this type of writing until the second grade.The biggest complaint, i bought them double lunches because they would come home hungry, and i was told they were spoiled rotten, by whom those to whom spent their money on others things then they~re children. i agreed with my children, i ate schoollunches before. Get out of my house, your moving in and i do not want you there. it~s simple hire someone else to solve your adult problems and do not bug my children for the things mom and dad speak about at home. lord knows, the President is not able to do half the things people falsly believe he can do. he must keep his adult problems out away from our kitchen table, my children to young to worry about then why the demo-republican can~t get along and yet they work together day in and out for years together. Teach yourselfs to stop back stabbing your neighbor and stay silent to my children, your not my idea of their Father. MsAnnie

Last edited by annyork61 on September 8th, 2009, 3:12 am, edited 2 times in total.

The Big Golden Steer= Obama, I have seen this route before. They know not then what they say, you know the truth comes out as they least expect it. Years of theology and well why, the church was across the street, we kids about lived there, go to Guardian Angels, 52nd ave and pray, pray, pray, seek your own answer from God=Allah. one free translation.

Vote for Richard B. Williams 2012 of the Native American College Fund, why he knows winter is coming and clean up the yard, mow the grass, take out the trash, and for all our sakes wash your feet.

Wow-per the previous bloggers, it appears an emphasis on education by the President is really needed. To think these are the people raising the next generation! Some outside intervention is sorely needed.

The big fear those parents have that oppose the President? What if little Johnny learns to think critically after being inspired by him and then calls Mom and Dad on all the garbage they spout around the house.

It is said that particular artists "paint" the world a certain way. Metaphor extended, we all do that: If you want to know how you see the world here is good test...

Take a completely innocent event, like this one, and see where you take it. All presidents since the advent of the TV have addressed school children and all such messages have been neutral- aimed at inspiring kids to study, be good, etc., etc. This text is especially generic. Never has there been an instance of mass objection to these occurrences. Even after the heated Bush v. Gore, our president spoke freely to children and his wife launched school related national programs. There was no fear. U.S. presidents are taught in school in several subjects, they are history and the symbol of our nation. These are simple facts.

Now, if you are thinking about partisan agendas, secret reasons for speaking, or even brainwashing, might I suggest you are painting the world a certain way? This is a good opportunity for you, if you do think like that, you can take the moment to step back and try to make peace with the world. That kind of thinking is corrosive, do you really want to go on like that forever?

I read the speech. It sounds almost identical to most of the political ads taken out by Obama as he was creating his army of the faithful. Lots of sob stories about himself, and suddenly everybody is on his side even though they have no clue about what his side really is. This is nothing more than a shameless plug to future voters using tax money we don't have to spend.

Not wrote:I read the speech. It sounds almost identical to most of the political ads taken out by Obama as he was creating his army of the faithful. Lots of sob stories about himself, and suddenly everybody is on his side even though they have no clue about what his side really is. This is nothing more than a shameless plug to future voters using tax money we don't have to spend.

You have not read the speech, you have misread the speech. This world does not exist for you interpretation, there are facts which exist beyond subjective analysis. Reading beyond that point, a self-aware person would start each sentence, "I think, this is nothing more then a shameless plug..."

Well, its obvious here that education is sorely missing.Bottom line: The few voices screaming very loud is nothing more than an act of racism. If the president was white there wouldn't be an outcry, no matter the party.

With each passing day, I feel more and more like I'm in a totalitarian state such as N. Korea, Nazi Germany, or China with Mao. This president is fomenting a cult of personality where his face and his thinking is being attached to virtually every aspect of our lives. This may work well with the lemmings of our country who want the federal government to be their nanny. But those of us who love freedom and want the government to restrict itself to fighting wars and signing treaties (constitutional limits), are finding all this to be troubling and a very bad path for our country.

Sorry Art. I forgot that I must read everything through the party colored glasses. Please interpret it for me. In fact, please explain exactly why the same stories told by Obama during his campaign are now being told to classrooms on our dime. In fact please explain exactly why a President talking to his people should include any more than one story about himself. I thought he was supposed to be talking about OUR world, not just his. I thought he was supposed to be focusing on OUR problems, not his "I have overcome" shameless plugging. He does not know everything. He has not experienced everything. What he is should never mean as much as what he does. And so far what he has done has been even more shameless than a plug to minors.

PLEASE GIVE ME ANY OTHER WAY TO READ THIS SPEECH, because I have lost all faith in the great country our forefathers designed (which is who the great presidents evoked when they wanted to talk about us all), and the ten second popularity contest that the ignorant voters have turned it into. All I ever see is party line bickering by people who don't understand any of the subjects they bicker about. They are only a half step away from actually naming the people or organizations they are rewarding with each successive handout. All politicians are becoming lazy, disinterested, self-serving manipulators who do nothing more than rape the gullable sheep while smiling for their reelection photos.

I disagreed with practically everything our FORMER President did. I disagreed with the way he thought, I disagreed with his politics, and I disagreed with his approach to the Presidency. I distrusted almost everything he told us. But, I would never have disagreed with the notion of him speaking to the students of America. I would trust that his message would have been to inform them of about the nature of our country, constitution and goverment; and that he wanted to motivate them to chase their dreams. I trust that is all this President wants to do.

Those of you that are playing politics with this, and those that actually believe that the President is doing this to impose a political viewpoint need to rethink what being an American is.

Too bad he won't tell these kids that he is leaving them so far in debt that they will never get this country out of it. More debt than any US president in history. Now that is a lesson they should learn.

CP wrote:Too bad he won't tell these kids that he is leaving them so far in debt that they will never get this country out of it. More debt than any US president in history. Now that is a lesson they should learn.

I, too, believe the last eight years never happened.

If you want to fly in the face of what people who understand economics say, that's your business, but it's a consensus among almost all economists that in a recession/depression, you spend more to prop up troubled sectors of the economy.

When combined with the shrinking tax base, yes, this creates deficits. Deficit spending in itself is not evil (or did you buy your home with one large cash payment?)

The idea is that once things are on the up-and-up, you spend RESPONSIBLY and pay down your debt. Clinton was making progress there. George W. Bush stopped paying down the debt, blew trillions on two wars and accelerated the deregulation that brought about another recession. Think what a better position we'd be in to meet the challenges of this recession if we hadn't been tricked into letting a bunch of war profiteers raid the treasury in a radical upward redistribution of wealth!

Are conservative parents really afraid that a 15-minute speech by the president is somehow going to undo all the positive values they've worked to instill in their kids? If you truly believe that that is possible, then what does that say about the job you've done as a parent to-date?

Are liberals really buying into the notion that the post-speech materials were "inartfully worded", as we've been told? Someone got caught trying to slide one by, nothing more and nothing less.

It is not the speech that concerns those that object to this presidential address to our children while they are in school. The speech itself is motivational and uplifting and pretty politically neutral. It was the lesson plan. It was the request by the DofEd that students write letters about why they should SUPPORT Pres Obama and what they LIKE about him. That aspect just reeked of indoctrination and partisan politics. It was the set up and execution of this that went south. They should have announced the speech, eliminated the "lesson plan", and released a copy early to calm all the fears. Easy and simple. But the Obama Team seems to make everything much harder and more complex than required - healthcare reform included.

Not wrote:PLEASE GIVE ME ANY OTHER WAY TO READ THIS SPEECH, because I have lost all faith in the great country our forefathers designed (which is who the great presidents evoked when they wanted to talk about us all), and the ten second popularity contest that the ignorant voters have turned it into. All I ever see is party line bickering by people who don't understand any of the subjects they bicker about. They are only a half step away from actually naming the people or organizations they are rewarding with each successive handout. All politicians are becoming lazy, disinterested, self-serving manipulators ...

Fair enough, I feel similarly, although I'm trying to think positive too. It's hard to get over the Clinton/ Bush era of extreme partisan bile. I'm hopeful about the next decade but it's easy to see how Obama's speech is anything but a continuation. Once bitten, twice shy.

None-the-less, I still think the speech is mundane and not particularly the best place if we are to pick our battles. All presidents try to inspire children, I think they feel obligated as the figure-head to America. Perhaps his speech is self-promotional but there's got to be a little latitude or we are doomed to becoming pawns of partisan bickering ourselves.

Not wrote:Sorry Art. I forgot that I must read everything through the party colored glasses. Please interpret it for me. In fact, please explain exactly why the same stories told by Obama during his campaign are now being told to classrooms on our dime. In fact please explain exactly why a President talking to his people should include any more than one story about himself. I thought he was supposed to be talking about OUR world, not just his. I thought he was supposed to be focusing on OUR problems, not his "I have overcome" shameless plugging. He does not know everything. He has not experienced everything. What he is should never mean as much as what he does. And so far what he has done has been even more shameless than a plug to minors.

PLEASE GIVE ME ANY OTHER WAY TO READ THIS SPEECH, because I have lost all faith in the great country our forefathers designed (which is who the great presidents evoked when they wanted to talk about us all), and the ten second popularity contest that the ignorant voters have turned it into. All I ever see is party line bickering by people who don't understand any of the subjects they bicker about. They are only a half step away from actually naming the people or organizations they are rewarding with each successive handout. All politicians are becoming lazy, disinterested, self-serving manipulators who do nothing more than rape the gullable sheep while smiling for their reelection photos.

You obviously are reading the text through colored glasses. The speech is meant to be inspirational. What better way to inspire than to tell the story of a man that became president, by an overwhelming margin of popular vote.

GoodNewsGuy wrote:if this speech was really intended to be inspirational, why did the department of education publish volumes of instruction to teachers concerning follow up lessons about our "great leader"?

I think this is where the entire matter of this speech got untracked.

People who support the president are happy to accept that some things were "inartfully worded", and those things were changed.

People who mistrust the president wonder why such materials were generated in the first place.

Then people on one side start pointing fingers and name-calling those on the other side, and all sense of reason went right out the window.